Onto Innovation has completed its strategic investment in Rigaku Holdings Corporation, marking a significant step in the companies’ effort to expand X-ray-based process control technologies for advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

Onto Innovation is an American technology company that designs and builds process control, inspection, metrology, and lithography systems and software for the semiconductor and microelectronic manufacturing industries headquartered in Massachusetts. On the other hand, Rigaku is a Japanese manufacturer specializing in X-ray based scientific, analytical, and industrial instrumentation.

The transaction deepens a collaboration first announced in April 2026 and reinforces both firms’ commitment to addressing increasingly complex chip production challenges.

The company confirmed it has closed the acquisition of a 27 percent minority equity stake in Rigaku from Atom Investment, L.P., an affiliate of Carlyle, for approximately ¥113.078 billion (US$720 million). As part of the arrangement, Onto Innovation will also nominate a director to Rigaku’s board.

Expanding Collaboration Around X-Ray Technologies

The move builds on an existing strategic partnership focused on developing next-generation process control solutions that combine X-ray technologies with advanced semiconductor metrology capabilities. The companies are targeting emerging manufacturing requirements created by increasingly sophisticated logic, memory and packaging architectures.

As semiconductor devices continue to incorporate more complex 3D structures and a growing range of advanced materials, manufacturers are seeking new ways to gain deeper visibility into critical production processes. Against this backdrop, Onto Innovation and Rigaku have been working together to develop solutions that leverage the strengths of both optical metrology and X-ray analysis technologies.

Mike Plisinski, chief executive officer of Onto Innovation, said the partnership is already generating positive results.

“As semiconductor innovation advances rely increasingly on more complex 3D architectures and exotic materials, our customers face growing challenges in understanding and controlling their most critical manufacturing processes.”  In addition, Plisinski said, “This investment strengthens our partnership, accelerates innovation, and enhances our ability to provide more holistic process control solutions.”

Addressing Advanced Logic and Memory Demands

Earlier this year, the two companies announced joint efforts to integrate Onto Innovation’s Ai Diffract analysis software with Rigaku’s critical dimension small-angle X-ray scattering technology platforms. According to Onto Innovation, the resulting offering has already been selected by two key customers and is being applied to advanced V-NAND and DRAM metrology, while engagement continues to expand among major logic and memory manufacturers.

The collaboration is designed to enable customers to correlate data from multiple measurement platforms, combining the speed and location intelligence of optical critical dimension metrology with the precision offered by X-ray technologies.

Strategic Focus on Future Semiconductor Nodes

Furthermore, the investment supports a broader strategy to accelerate innovation in process control as semiconductor manufacturers transition to increasingly advanced technology nodes. By strengthening alignment between the two organizations, Onto Innovation aims to advance joint technology development and bring next-generation solutions to market more effectively.

With the transaction now complete, both companies are positioned to deepen collaboration aimed at helping semiconductor manufacturers address yield, quality and process-control challenges associated with future generations of chips.  

12 August 2026